What is Manchester to you?

[give it to gordon]

OK here goes stand back I was born in stretford memorial hospital old trafford (58yrs ago).....I know but very quickly moved into Manchester a few days later lol. I li ed in Didsbury until I was aged 5 than my family moved to kent to be by the seaside. My dad was from Burnage, and so was my grandad. As every day goes by I class myself more and more a mancunian. I have near felt like kent means much to me . Manchester is my roots and I am so proud to be from Manchester. And it's so true northerners are so much more friendly than southerns. My lads were born down here as my wife wouldn't make the journey back to Manchester to give birth !!!. So Manchester to me is my birth place my families birth place and my roots , just a shame I lost my accent thro my missus says it does come through sometimes ....

So I consider myself to be from Manchester (not greater Manchester) in Lancashire

 

[The perfect fumble]

just a shame I lost my accent thro my missus says it does come through sometimes ....

Let me guess, it's footbawl ;-)

 

[Deleted member 77198]

Nope not for me the irwell is where the city centre end always has in my 43 years alive and for me always will, I know many salfordians that are rightly pissed off those things mentioned have manchester in thier name.

Trintiy way, greengate, the lowry, salford central are not in the citry centre, just as ancoats, the marble arch, ardwick green etc are not the city centre.

Just because you are 10 minutes walk away doesn't mean you are in the city centre.

Salford is rightly a different and proud city of it's own to call it Manchester insults the place in my opinion and not part of the city centre, that how it was when I was brought up in the 80s and I see no reason to change my view now

There’s a distinction between what we’re saying.

I’m not saying places in the borough lines of Salford are in the borough lines of Manchester. I’m saying the city centre spans parts of Salford as well as Manchester.

It’s the city centre of Salford, Trafford and Manchester, and I do know people in Tameside who do call it “Town” too.

The central business district of this conurbation is ever changing and growing and moving in shape and size. As NOMA grows and becomes part of Town, like Ancoats is now, also New Cross will too. Just like Castlefield did. Greengate is going through the same thing. Great Jackson Street too, which is now classed as the city centre despite once only the part North of the Medlock was the city centre.

And on a wider outlook. What were once distinct towns in their own right got swallowed up by the cities of Salford and Manchester. And to the same end, the Metropolis conurbation we live in has swallowed up the distinct cities too. It’s bigger than the city boroughs now. That way of thinking of the 1974 borough lines is very 20th Century, very outdated. 1974 was a long time ago now and this conurbation has well outgrown what it was set out as back then.

That’s why I pay no attention to the made up lines on the map. It’s the physical conurbation on the map that matters, and that conurbation and it’s city centre is never still, never settled, never the same.

 

[marc_mcfc90]

Manchester is home <3

 

[Deleted member 77198]

One thing about Manchester that has always been called incorrectly, by the way, is the one thing about Salford that shines through Manchester the most...

The accent.

What is called the Manchester accent or the Mancunian accent, isn’t Manchester or Mancunian at all. It’s the Salford accent.

The Salford accent was distinct from the Lancashire accent when Manchester was in Salford and Salford was in Lancashire.

That twang we all have is the Salford accent!

The roll of our “r”s, how we say words that end in “er” “or” and even some words ending in “ar” “a” and “ow”, and the way we say words ending in “y”; that’s the Salford accent.

There’s no such thing as a Manchester accent.

 

[WEMBLEY76]

I was born in Eccles in 1962 when it was in Lancashire,now it’s part of Salford since 1974.
Live in Middleton now which has a M postcode but council tax area is Rochdale.Have lived in Stretford in the past.Feel more connected to Manchester’s values,probably partly due to being a City fan,and the different values associated with Salford I have no interest in.

 

[Ballet-on-ice]

Technically I'm from Bury as I was brought up in Whitefield but I've always considered myself a mancunian. I now live Worsley which is part of Salford but I guarantee no one round here will ever say they live in Salford.

So, even though I have never actually lived in Manchester I still consider myself a 'manc'.

As an aside I have noticed recently whenever I'm out of the country I do have a tendency to manc it up a bit with my accent and go a bit Liam Gallagher, my missus says I need to stop it.

 

[west didsblue]

Technically I'm from Bury as I was brought up in Whitefield but I've always considered myself a mancunian. I now live Worsley which is part of Salford but I guarantee no one round here will ever say they live in Salford.

So, even though I have never actually lived in Manchester I still consider myself a 'manc'.

As an aside I have noticed recently whenever I'm out of the country I do have a tendency to manc it up a bit with my accent and go a bit Liam Gallagher, my missus says I need to stop it.

She’s right.

 

[7evens]

My spiritual home, but one that I'm glad I'll likely never go back to.

I lived in Stockport near Edgeley Park until I was 18, when my family decided that living in the city centre would be best for all of us. I was accepted by Salford University, my mum worked near the main campus as well and couldn't face the commute any longer, and my dad was happy to drive back to Stockport of a morning - it made sense so we made the move. I was initially reluctant to leave Stockport behind but the connection I quickly established to Manchester was wonderful and, honestly, living that city centre lifestyle was incredible. Just one example, I used to spend Friday afternoons with my friends who lived back in Stockport, so I'd always head back on the last train to Piccadilly. That meant I got to walk through the city centre at night - the streets were always brightly lit and the bars and pubs were always packed, and it was such a wonderful thing to see. Not only that but my mum and I could walk to City games in half an hour.

I didn't realise how much I loved Manchester, though, until the terrorist attack happened. I wasn't in the Arena but I was caught up in the chaos outside as parents and children were running away from the scene. I just so happened to be heading up Trinity Way at exactly 10.30 that night and had no idea what was happening. I got home, made some late night dinner, and sat down with my laptop on. There was a post on the Facebook group for the building I lived in that simply said, "Just heard a loud bang coming from Victoria. Everyone okay?" And my relationship with Manchester was never the same again. The next morning I went to visit some other friends near Piccadilly and walking through the city I realised that someone had finally turned the volume down on Manchester. You can usually hear chatter, traffic noise, pneumatic drills, bus brakes, Metrolink horns, but that morning all I could hear was police tape flapping in the breeze and generators quietly humming away to themselves.

That was when I realised what Manchester was to me, and what Manchester should be: a loud, confrontational, cultural, boisterous, confident city, defined by its lovely people, its progressive art, its forward-thinking politics, that resonated with me on a level that I can't describe with words. Once the true character was taken out of the city on that morning I began to realise how much it really played a part in my experiences with it. It's why I've always loved that video of that one woman singing 'Don't Look Back in Anger' during the memorial service while others quietly hum along with her. It was a way for Manchester to admit that it was scared but still managing to remain defiant and proud - that compromise of feelings ultimately got the city through that difficult summer in 2017. The entire world watched us with a magnifying glass that year and we responded so brilliantly that it was impossible to not feel a deeper connection in the aftermath.

A year ago we moved back to Stockport. The city centre's becoming aggressively different beyond anything I could have comprehended - so many new private flats, more cars and people, it's beginning to resemble London in some ways - and I'm sad about that. People are fighting for space on Market Street in a way that they never used to. But while it might turn into London in appearance and aesthetic, in terms of nature and character I don't believe the change will be quite so swift. Manchester always holds on to what it truly is, even when outsiders - be they private developers or terrorists - try their best to change things. That's why it'll always be special, that's why it's my spiritual home.

 

[Ban-jani]

Without even trying I can justufy my opinion that manchester peaked in the aftermath of ww2, by listing the major employers that have disappeared. The biggest of them, Metropolitan-Vickers had nearly 30,000 full time employees, and supported hundreds of smaller suppliers, it's apprentice school turned out highly skilled fitters and engineers.
Down the road, Superheaters, ICI, Ciba-geigy, Rubber-regen, Carborundum Massey-ferguson, Cowburn and Cowper, the infamous Turners Asbestos, Manchester Liners, Crossley Engines,
that were loosely in Trafford Park. The word "park" is the salient point, it doesn't mean it was the biggest industrial area, it would fit about ten times into the Ruhr, but anyway...The east side where the Etihad stands lost thousands of jobs with the demise of the railways, Br, Bayer-Peacock and subsidiaries. Craven Bros, Storeys, Ferrantis, British Steel, Mirrlees, Union Carbide, Linotype, Miele, Dorma, Dunlop, Fairy Aviation, Vickers-Armstrong, English Electric. When Shell closed it's "cat-cracker" at Carrington, it took 100,000 pounds a week out of the local economy, apply that across the industrial waste land that is left, and i stand by my opinion that the future, with zero-hour contracts, robotised everything, the housing that replaced the slums now slums themselves, is grim for the vast majority.
But then, i haven't a clue, I only lived through it, FFS :(

I’m not arguing that there were parts of the past that were great and some areas in the city have got worse, whilst others better like Ancoats for example. I’m arguing your original point that it’s bad now.

The reason it’s bad now isn’t because of the economy or opportunities, it’s because of the anti social behaviour in and around the city.

What I’m telling you is that Manchester is doing very well currently and isn’t getting worse. I would argue it’s the best time ever to live in the city, I suppose living standards are better everywhere but still.

The amount of companies moving into the city, for example RBS are moving their entire operations from London up to Manchester which will employ thousands.

I mean, a quick google search will confirm this -

Whilst London has always been the business capital of the UK, Manchester is leading the charge in de-centralising the UK market, boasting the fastest growing economy outside of the capital and gross value added (GVA) growth projections of 45% between 2016 and 2036. Furthermore, with operating costs up to 40% lower than London, Manchester provides the perfect environment for profitable growth, allowing margin for error when starting up a business. The abundance of FTSE 100 companies with activity in Manchester, combined with recent record highs for the index provide strong evidence that business activity will continue to grow in Manchester.

Also I don’t doubt that zero hour contracts and the gig economy is bad but that’s everywhere and when we’re comparing Manchester to other cities, it’s mostly winning.